Author's note: This is it! I love this story SO MUCH. This chapter made me feel so bittersweet while editing, as it wasn't originally the last year. Upon the reread, I realized how perfectly it ties everything up. I love these characters, and this story. Thank you for indulging me and all your kind words, readers. Be on the lookout for some companion one-shots in the future. Without further ado: F.P. and Alice share my favorite moment in possibly the whole work, and Daddy!Jughead is a beautiful thing. Enjoy.
09.18.2018
Alice waits for him outside the gates. She looks like she has something sharp to say, but he beats her to it.
"You look good, Cooper," he grins. Its been decades since they've amicably been in the same space as one another, but it may as well have been yesterday. "And I'm not just saying that because you're the first woman I've seen in the flesh in eight years."
She turns away to open the driver's door, "Smith."
"What?" He says once they're seated.
"I said Smith, F.P.," she says it like he's driving her crazy after only a few minutes together. "Hal and I divorced over two years ago."
F.P. loses his swagger with that. What the fuck is it with these people not telling him shit? Although, he can't say too much with what they're about to do.
"Allie, you didn't do that because of-"
"They're going to be pissed I didn't tell them," Alice says to cut him off.
He rolls his eyes and drops his inquisition. He has plenty of time to figure her out again. "Not at first, and you know it."
She hums noncommittally. They're quite for a long stretch of highway, not needing to fill the silence.
"Alice, you missed the exit toward the city."
"We're not going to the city," she replies, a superior note to her voice as she sits up a little straighter. "We're going home."
He gives her a wild look, "Alice, as much as I missed you too, I'd really like to see my son. We'll have plenty of time to get reacquainted with one another now that you've left that wet carpet of a husband-"
"Jesus, F.P., can you keep your unsavory thoughts to your self, please? I'm not taking you to my home, I'm taking you to yours, you snake." She glares out of the corner of her eye, but he sees some color to her cheeks. Even after all this time, he still gets to her.
"Well, I can't promise my mind won't wander. Or my hands, for that matter." His grin is sickening now, and she reaches out to swat him in the chest as he laughs before giving her an uncertain look.
"Honestly, F.P. Just trust me." The car is slowing, and he takes a moment to realize where they are.
Sunnyside Trailer Park.
He's completely confused now. They're going to the trailer? He figures Jughead would've sold it by now. He knows that the Serpents had paid it off, and that Jughead and Betty had frequented it in their high school days, but knows nothing beyond that. It hadn't exactly been a pressing conversation topic over the last eight years.
"Alice, what the hell?" He's out of the car but he's not making any moves to approach the old trailer.
She turns at the top of the stairs, hand on the doorknob. "Trust me."
He follows her inside. The first thing he realizes is that its been updated; what a ridiculous idea, renovating a trailer. The thought passes quickly as he takes in the random boxes in the living room and kitchen, piling up the walls. Despite that, the place is warm and tidy.
He doesn't notice the bottles drying in the dish rack, or the pack-n-play by the desk in the corner. He doesn't notice because there's his son.
Jughead's sleeping on the couch, his tatted arm curled around a little body clad in a grey onesie and beanie.
F.P.'s breath is caught in his throat at the sight, and he's only a little aware of Alice's hand on his arm, turning him towards a soft voice coming from the hall. "Juggie, where's the-"
Betty Jones stops short in the doorway. She looks tired, in black leggings and a ratty old S shirt. Her hair is damp, and her face is completely shocked.
"Mom, what…?" Suddenly she's moving towards him, and then he's in her arms. "Oh my god, oh my god, F.P. You're here. How are you here?"
She's pulled back now, hands on his shoulders. Alice jumps in, "Honey, he got parole."
Betty brings a hand up to cover her mouth and F.P. is suddenly aware that she's about to start crying. Before he can make a lousy attempt to comfort her, they're interrupted by a low voice.
"Hey, Dad," F.P. looks back to his boy. He's still laying on the couch, C.J. sleeping soundly on his chest as he rubs circles on the baby's back. His smile is so, so real.
"Hey, Jug."
09.29.2018
F.P. comes to find out that Jughead and Betty had just moved back to Riverdale three weeks before his release. They were making do in the trailer, having just closed on a cute yellow bungalow around the corner from Archie and Veronica's mini mansion.
He makes a joking comment to Jughead about keeping so much from him, looking down at his grandson in his arms when he does so. C.J.'s eyes are green now, like his mother's.
Jughead doesn't laugh. "Look, Dad. A lot happened in the last eight years."
"You think?" F.P. smirks, gesturing with a nod to the baby in his arms.
"Okay, yeah, clearly," this time Jughead speaks with a light chuckle. "I just didn't want to make it worse, I guess. By telling you all the things you couldn't be there for."
"It was gonna happen whether you told me or not, Jug."
Jughead reaches over to lightly trace his son's hairline. "I know that now."
10.06.2018
He stops by the new house.
Jughead opens the door with a finger to his lips, signaling that C.J. was sleeping. F.P. follows him past moving boxes out to the back yard. They stand with their hands in their pockets for a moment.
"Happy Birthday, Jughead." His throat feels tight, realizing this is the first one he's really been there for in nine years.
"Thanks, Dad."
The last few weeks had been strange. It was a harder transition than F.P. thought it would be. With the kids in the trailer, Alice had offered to let him stay in her guest room until they moved out again.
He'd spent the first few nights in what used to be Polly Cooper's room. After the fourth night, he slept in what used to be Hal Cooper's bed. They don't really talk about it, and F.P. is glad for that. He thinks words might ruin it, if they look too closely at the 30 years they'd spent apart; if they acknowledged that they wouldn't have had any of this (the grandbaby, the prison sentence, the quiet nights together) had they not walked the paths they did.
He works on Archie's construction crew. Having a job is a requirement of his parole, and he likes working with his hands. Thanks to the electrician's certificate he earned at Shankshaw, he'll do the wiring on all the projects now.
He transitions back to the trailer three days before Jughead's 24th birthday.
This time, its easier than he thought it'd be.
"You know, Jug, how much I love you, right?" His son turns towards him from where he'd been fiddling with the baby monitor. Jughead may be a father himself now, but he's still his boy. His hair is short again, and F.P. is moved to see he has his ratty old crown beanie pulled over it. The tattoo sleeve has crept up his neck, the date of C.J.'s birthday inked low on his throat.
F.P.'s still a little startled by the tattoos, but Jughead explains them simply one night in whispers over his son. The serpent winds up his elbow, in a garden of dark flowers; his says the snake is for F.P. There are Daffodils and Larkspurs, the flowers of April (for his wedding month) and July (for Betty's birth month.) Honeysuckle twining his forearm for the baby. There's a rose for his mother, even if she never returned the voice message he left the day after C.J's birth. Poppy's for Jellybean, who followed in his foot steps to New York City, where she studies graphic design.
There's a roman numeral three behind his right ear, for himself.
In big, curling letters is Elizabeth over his heart, in a bed of Delphiniums. He never shows F.P. that one. Alice tells him that she'd only ever seen it in the pictures from the Hawaii vacation, but evidently it was his first one.
"Of course, Dad," Jughead's brow is furrowed, a loving look on his face despite it all, "After everything, of course I know."
The baby cries inside. Jughead squeezes F.P.'s shoulder as he moves inside to comfort his son.